COMMENTARY: Change will come when we act together

A man holds a sign in front of a mural of Alton Sterling in front of the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Thursday. Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the convenience store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs.(Photo: GERALD HERBERT/Associated Press)

A reaction and reflection on the Baton Rouge debacle: We don't die, we get stronger and wiser (some of us) when we realize change comes when we sit together, thinking and planning out how to let the Lord lead us together, and to love one another while respecting our differences.

All the things slavery sought to employ to demolish a people of color, tactics to destroy and weaken a people, so that we would never fight back: ripped apart family ties, any and all relationships, far from our native home, devoid of our languages and customs. Pitting us one against the other, the field against the house, the light against the dark, the favored against the disfavored.

Yes, some of us were and are symbolic Judases; we accept that. Yet now many of us are seeking higher-learning knowledge far beyond reading and writing, and are acting on our thinking: organizing; doing research; planning actions and press conferences; using social media; and, when necessary, holding those in authority accountable. Doing it according to their laws and their own rules.

You see, they made up their own ideas about the reality of who darker-skinned people are — their black brothers and sisters. Instead of factually looking into black people, they began to believe their own rhetoric.

The problem is simple: Because you don't believe a truth does not erase it. Who is "they," you might ask? Response: to whom it does apply. Let your conscience be your guide.

You say you weren't there; well, neither was I. Yet they are still killing us today. So boldly that their own companions are shocked and frightened, that fear is driving them to act out because the reality has surfaced — come to the dawn, into light — that we are just like them. Because they imagine they know how we must be feeling after 400 years; it's how they would feel if it was done to themselves.

So instead of seeking forgiveness in a godly action, they continue to blacken our good names and ravage our testimonies, but like a black marker on a white sheet, or the red blood spilled on the streets, the mark remains. In the case of our blood, it cries out to God in heaven, just like the blood of Abel cried out to him in heaven.

Yes, they may steal, kill and destroy the flesh, but they cannot kill the spirit. The eternal life, it belongs to God. The life is in the blood; it goes back to God! It is not erased.

They thought they killed Jesus on the cross too. Won't they be surprised when he cracks the sky, and the dead in Christ will rise first, and we who remain will be caught up to meet him in the air. This is good news but it is not new news yet — it is the daily news!

I am just thinking out loud, talking to my Father about all the blood that must be accounted for at the last day.

Rev. Dr. Marilyn Hill is an associate pastor of Camden Bible Tabernacle Church in Camden.